Dreading the Work Day

I kept meaning to tell you about dancing from last week but I’m now so worked up about this whole stupid work thing and what may or may not happen tomorrow so I have to let something out. I mean they can’t fire me for turning something down, can they? And, would it be the worst thing in the world if the did? Probably not.

For whatever reason, I’ve been looking at various websites for signs of burn out. Why do I do these things? You get general lists of things where some of them actually apply, some sort of apply and some don’t. So how do you score that if you are playing along at home? And does it really matter if we can actually label something? Does that somehow make the feelings more “real” if I can attach an arbitrary name to them?

I wish I could pull out some logical reasons why this is freaking me out so much. Part of it is just some anxiety about being so far away from home and not really having a good way to stay in touch. To be honest, a big part of it that I’ve never had to make arrangements before. I was always part of a group and my boss made all the plans and it was clear how we were getting from the airport to wherever we were going. I didn’t have to think about it and it was relaxing.

Which sounds silly because why don’t you just man up and do what everyone else does and pick a flight. There are people who can help but everyone always has the assumption that we all are experts traveling overseas and I’m not. I don’t even have the right adapter. So I’d need that or else I have no lap top or phone. But my phone is my personal phone. I don’t carry a work phone. I’ve never needed it because travel wasn’t a part of my job requirements. Well I need an adapter to power it and then I’d need to figure out a way to get service where we are going.

These are not difficult things. I do realize that. There is some unnecessary drama here without questions. I just don’t do well with lists and preparation and you can be sure I’d forget something critical and be stuck somewhere where I wouldn’t know how to get it.

Plus they are starting this meeting on a Monday which requires flying out on a Saturday night with the time differential and all. That really cuts into my personal time. I know it is the job you are saying but I balance the demands on my personal time with the value I’ll get from the meeting (none) and it makes me angry that they would schedule it this way knowing that it will create more inconvenience for some of us. Those who are already in place just have to either drive up Sunday night or even early Monday morning. Not the same amount of distraction.

And, there’s a festival here in town that I really want to attend which happens to be that weekend. And fall is football season and this will take a weekend of football away from me. Yeah, I probably sound like I’m whining now about how this isn’t fair but this is just the lists of why this particular trip is such a pain in my backside.

The real thing is the stupid meetings. I’m not a strategist. I’m not a planner. I’m a doer. Well not really that either but I can work with my team to get things done. OK, I don’t know what I really am but I don’t really spend a lot of time thinking deep thoughts about the future of the business and what we could do. Bad employee. Probably because the things they want to talk about are outside my area of expertise and I don’t need to spend 2-3 days listening to people who love to hear themselves talk.

There is something I’ve mentioned before and that is a part of my makeup which is I don’t automatically give deference and respect to someone just because they have a fancy title. I don’t think that our “leaders” are automatically more qualified and more talented than those they “lead”. There is so much done at the company that kind of feeds the ego of those who are weak into thinking that way but I don’t hold with that. So I sit there listening to people pontificate about things and how they should be done and there is a big part of me that says “you really don’t know what you are talking about” and then I just tune out. Yeah, I’m not really cut out to be on any sort of leadership team. I don’t believe in them.

It sounds silly but I’d like my leaders to be more idealistic and inspirational. Tacticians who plan everything and spend endless hours discussing irrelevant contingencies just don’t do anything for me. And I don’t want to be sucked into that vortex from which there is no escape.

And there’s one other thing. Up until this year, I was really just an afterthought. I mentioned this in my last post, but I wasn’t an “up and comer”. I was someone who you could count on to get things done but I wasn’t part of the club. My name wasn’t on the in list so I didn’t get invited to all the hot parties. Now, just by an accident of the org chart, I’m supposed to believe that they want me in their club. No thanks. I’m happy where I am thank you very much.

I guess another way to sum this up is this description of an INFP and what we need in the workplace “they value harmony, need an emotional and moral connection to their work, and loathe bureaucratic tedium”

And we’ve always had our share of bureaucratic tedium but when we were working on projects, I had something to believe in so I could put up with the tedium. Now that everything seems to come down to costs and we have new bureaucracies springing up overnight and nothing seems to be in the pipeline, it is just hard to find the reason to get up and get to work. Being invited to this meeting is more torture than perk and it does nothing to get me fired up about the future.

Well, I don’t feel much better. At the end of the day, I will refuse to go and whatever happens is what was meant to be. I can’t go along to get along on this.